Tunisian Combat Group

The Tunisian Combat Group was a Salafi jihadist group active in Tunisia since the 1990s, seeking to establish an Islamic state there.

History
The Tunisian Combat Group was formed in the 1990s, and it was linked to al-Qaeda, a fellow jihadist group that wanted to form a worldwide Islamic caliphate. The Tunisian Combat Group sought to establish an Islamic state in Tunisia adhering to Salafism, the belief that all people should live as the first generations of Muhammad's ummah did in the 7th century. The TCG had operatives in North Africa, Afghanistan, and Western Europe, where its leader Tarek Maaroufi supplied false Belgian passports to the two suicide bombers who killed Ahmad Shah Massoud in 2001. In 2004, the United States designated the TCG as a terrorist group in the Patriot Act, and TCG members fought alongside al-Qaeda in the Afghanistan War. In 2011, Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia split from the TCG, dividing the Islamist groups in Tunisia.